The Vitality To Preserve Paper Books Instead Of Ebooks

Technology today has been a vital part of humanity and we can all agree that technology has always provided us with the means of doing a task with more convenience. Readers prefer E-books over printed ones because of the convenience factor. Although paper books offer an experience that e-books can’t mimic, making other readers stay with paper books.

The experience factor of getting a printed copy of a book is definitely something to consider. Back in the old days, I remember the times when there was no such thing as an e-book, a time when the only option of acquiring a certain book was to go to bookstores. I always thought that those trips were fun and at the same time a form of bonding with my classmates, friends or family; Those days where me and my friends set a date, time, and a place where to meet or where to start our search for a book. Whenever I was in a bookstore there was a kind of excitement while browsing around, I look through new books and try to decide which one looked the most interesting. I remember being excited for a new book that I’ve been waiting for and rushing to a bookstore to quickly get a copy of it and hope that the store has it. Nowadays, when I need a book, the first thing I would do is to check online for an e-book version of it.

E-books are really great. They pretty much provide the same content as its paper book version and the process of acquiring one is very easy. If you wanted to purchase an e-book at any moment you wouldn’t even need to leave your house you can just click that add to cart button and instantly have it on your device. There are even sites online that work like a library that offer digital lending, and on sites like these you can even find some books that are free to download. With e-books you can acquire a new set of new books anytime you want. However, this does take out the fun experience of the trip. Nevertheless, I would think a rational buyer would enjoy the more convenient way.

E-books and paper books certainly has its own advantages and disadvantages; there are definitely a lot of factors to consider. E-books compared to paper books are more cost-effective, it may seem that an e-reader tablet is more expensive. But you will only have to buy it once. When it comes to it e-books are usually less expensive than paper books based on a cost breakdown from an article by Derrico (2010) showing paper books priced at $28 and e-books at $12.99, with that in mind e-books wouldn’t take any space in your home, you can keep buying more and it wouldn’t consume any space, unlike the trouble of buying more books and needing more space in your bookshelves just to keep it.

E-books have also been proven to be more environmental friendly because e-readers can take fewer resources to create than a large number of books. An article by Lamonica (2009) states that a research and media company drew on existing studies to do a lifecycle analysis and found that the carbon emissions from electronic books are far lower than traditional book publishing.

For all the advantages that e-books seem to have over paper books. You would think that the most logical choice of any reader would be to switch over to e-books. However, a lot of people still want the sense factor. For book lovers mainly, they would love the smell of a new book, to flip through the pages and actually hold the book they are reading. There are still a number of people who would love full book shelves at their houses; an archive of books at one’s disposal would not be such a bad idea after all.

Paper books are great when it comes to educational purposes like learning additional information or studying for school. Unlike an e-book you can easily underline or high light key points of a text on a printed copy, a paper book also provides better illustrations of any type of image as it’s not limited to the size of the screen of an e-reader. The ability to skim on paper books is also a lot easier than doing it on an e-book. People can easily go back and forth with flipping through pages rather than constantly scrolling up and down on an e-reader.

Despite some of the advantages of a paper book, I think the overall factors of an e-book like the convenience of purchasing or acquiring one, cost effectiveness, unlimited amount of space for books, and the more environmental friendly aspect of it heavily outweighs what a paper book can give, thus making the e-book the logical choice to buy or use. However, there will always be readers that prefer a real book over electronic ones because of its own qualities like the simple experiences of acquiring a book, a sense of touch and smell of books old or new, and its advantages when it comes to studies.